By Theme

The Changeling

When a recent widower (the wonderfully overemphatic George C. Scott ) moves into an antique Washington mansion, his realization that he may not be the only resident leads him toward a deadly secret that refuses to remain buried....The best haunted-house film since the legendary Haunting, this potent, classy combination of the mystery and horror genres eschews explicit gore and dumb shocks in exchange for a subtle creepiness that occasionally builds to a terrifying peak (watch out for that seance scene!). The result is a satisfyingly intelligent horror film with an intriguing dash of Watergate-era paranoia. Director Peter Medak went on to direct the considerably more gratuitous and somewhat less effective Romeo Is Bleeding and The Krays. --Andrew Wright

George C. Scott becomes the unwilling instrument of a ghost's revenge in this supernatural thriller.Running Time: 107 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 026359063022 Manufacturer No: 90630

The Sixth Sense (Collector's Edition Series)

"I see dead people," whispers little Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), scared to affirm what is to him now a daily occurrence. This peaked 9-year old, already hypersensitive to begin with, is now being haunted by seemingly malevolent spirits. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is trying to find out what's triggering Cole's visions, but what appears to be a psychological manifestation turns out to be frighteningly real. It might be enough to scare off a lesser man, but for Malcolm it's personal--several months before, he was accosted and shot by an unhinged patient, who then turned the gun on himself. Since then, Malcolm has been in turmoil--he and his wife (Olivia Williams) are barely speaking, and his life has taken an aimless turn. Having failed his loved ones and himself, he's not about to give up on Cole.

This third feature by M. Night Shyamalan sets itself up as a thriller, poised on the brink of delivering monstrous scares, but gradually evolves into more of a psychological drama with supernatural undertones. Many critics faulted the film for being mawkish and New Age-y, but no matter how you slice it, this is one mightily effective piece of filmmaking. The bare bones of the story are basic enough, but the moody atmosphere created by Shyamalan and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto made this one of the creepiest pictures of 1999, forsaking excessive gore for a sinisterly simple feeling of chilly otherworldliness. Willis is in his strong, silent type mode here, and gives the film wholly over to Osment, whose crumpled face and big eyes convey a child too wise for his years; his scenes with his mother (Toni Collette) are small, heartbreaking marvels. And even if you figure out the film's surprise ending, it packs an amazingly emotional wallop when it comes, and will have you racing to watch the movie again with a new perspective. You may be able to shake off the sentimentality of The Sixth Sense, but its craftsmanship and atmosphere will stay with you for days. --Mark Englehart

A boy who communicates with spirits that don't know they're dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.
Genre: Horror
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 6-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

Laura (Fox Film Noir)

This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example of the genre, but under the tasteful decor and high-society fashions lies a world seething in jealousy, passion, blackmail, and murder. Vincent Price costars as a blithe gigolo and David Raksin's lush theme has become a wistful romantic standard. --Sean Axmaker

Nominated for five Academy Awards®, this stylish mystery thriller twists and turns with new suspects, new evidence and unexpected revelations. A wealthy journalist (Clifton Webb) becomes entranced with a beautiful young career woman named Laura (Gene Tierney). But shortly before her wedding to a dashing young playboy (Vincent Price), she is found murdered. Stirred by her portrait, the detective (Dana Andrews) assigned to her case finds that he, too, is strangely under Laura's spell.

Tower of Terror

Kirsten Dunst stars as plucky teen niece to Steve Guttenberg in this 1997 telefilm that sets out to provide background for one of Disney/MGM Studios' popular thrill-rides, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Guttenberg plays Buzzy, a down-on-his-luck former journalist relegated to concocting stories for a Weekly World News-inspired tabloid. When an elderly woman approaches Buzzy with a compelling ghost story, he's persuaded to investigate. Dunst is Anna, who joins Buzzy in his search to find out the truth about the mysterious 1939 disappearance of five people--including a Shirley Temple-like child star--at the eerily abandoned Hollywood Tower Hotel. There are some scary segments, which may truly frighten sensitive younger viewers. Still, for older kids and adult viewers, Dunst's presence and a fairly fun story makes this an engaging film. (Ages 8 and older) --N.F. Mendoza

Big-screen stars Steve Guttenberg (THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY) and Kirsten Dunst (DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL) encounter a host of haunts in this delightfully spooky mystery! Buzzy Crocker (Guttenberg) is a hard-luck photojournalist whose unexpected encounter with an old woman leads him to investigate an unexplained, decades-old disappearance. It seems that one Halloween night, many years ago, five partygoers vanished in the elevator of the Hollywood Tower Hotel ... and ever since, their ghosts have remained trapped inside the dilapidated old building! In an action-filled story that delivers creepy fun for everyone, Buzzy ultimately teams with his niece (Dunst) to solve the mystery while managing to save their lives and capture the biggest story of the year!

Three Days of the Condor

Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack continued their longtime collaboration (the actor and director have worked together on Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Electric Horseman, and Out of Africa, among other films) with this taut spy drama. Redford plays a reader for U.S. intelligence who becomes a hunted man after he is not among the victims of a mass murder of his colleagues. Faye Dunaway does solid work as the frightened and mystified woman whom he forces to conceal him, and Max von Sydow is appropriately cool as a professional assassin. That same, sustained tone of danger and expectation that made Pollack's The Firm so much fun can be found in this 1975 thriller, albeit with an appropriate dose of post-Watergate paranoia. --Tom Keogh

Twilight

Burned-out private eye plunges into a murder mystery tied to a long-unsolved case involving an aging actor.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD

If it hadn't been released in 1998 with a veteran cast of Hollywood's finest, you could swear that Twilight was a movie from the 1940s--the kind of intelligent mystery that would've made Humphrey Bogart feel right at home. To be sure, that was exactly the intention of director and co-writer Robert Benton (in collaboration with Nobody's Fool writer Richard Russo), but the film's blessing is also its curse. Benton and Russo are so enamored of vintage mystery plots and characters that their movie nearly succumbs to the burden of old-fashioned familiarity. As the title suggests, the movie's aging characters, led by Newman as a private eye who's almost literally on his last legs, are all on the downhill of life, their Hollywood glory days behind them. Newman's character lives in the luxury home of two fading stars (Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon) who may or may not be connected to a murder plot that also involves one of Newman's old colleagues (James Garner). Whether they're literally in their final days (as in the case of Hackman's character) or just grasping for some comfort in their twilight years, these characters interact with the kind of worldly, intelligent dialogue that was common in the better movies of Hollywood's past. But while Twilight gives Newman yet another role to fit into like a favored old suit, the movie's so low-key that some viewers may find it hard to sit through. That's a shame, because the bombastic, frenetically paced films that dominated the 1990s may have diminished our collective capacity to appreciate the solid, character-driven movie tradition that Twilight attempts to revive. --Jeff Shannon

Seven (New Line Platinum Series)

The most viscerally frightening and disturbing homicidal maniac picture since The Silence of the Lambs, Seven is based on an idea that's both gruesome and ingenious. A serial killer forces each of his victims to die by acting out one of the seven deadly sins. The murder scene is then artfully arranged into a grotesque tableau, a graphic illustration of each mortal vice. From the jittery opening credits to the horrifying (and seemingly inescapable) concluding twist, director David Fincher immerses us in a murky urban twilight where everything seems to be rotting, rusting, or molding; the air is cold and heavy with dread. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are the detectives who skillfully track down the killer--all the while unaware that he has been closing in on them, as well. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey are also featured, but it is director Fincher and the ominous, overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere of doom that he creates that are the real stars of the film. It's a terrific date movie--for vampires. --Jim Emerson

A retiring cop and his replacement track a psychotic killer who's using the seven deadly sins as a guide. Starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Memento

Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) and Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix) shine in this absolute stunner of a movie. Memento combines a bold, mind-bending script with compelling action and virtuoso performances. Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, hunting down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The problem is that "the incident" that robbed Leonard of his wife also stole his ability to make new memories. Unable to retain a location, a face, or a new clue on his own, Leonard continues his search with the help of notes, Polaroids, and even homemade tattoos for vital information.

Because of his condition, Leonard essentially lives his life in short, present-tense segments, with no clear idea of what's just happened to him. That's where Memento gets really interesting; the story begins at the end, and the movie jumps backward in 10-minute segments. The suspense of the movie lies not in discovering what happens, but in finding out why it happened. Amazingly, the movie achieves edge-of-your-seat excitement even as it moves backward in time, and it keeps the mind hopping as cause and effect are pieced together.

Pearce captures Leonard perfectly, conveying both the tragic romance of his quest and his wry humor in dealing with his condition. He is bolstered by several excellent supporting players, and the movie is all but stolen from him by Pantoliano, who delivers an amazing performance as Teddy, the guy who may or may not be on his side. Memento has an intriguing structure and even meditations on the nature of perception and meaning of life if you go looking for them, but it also functions just as well as a completely absorbing thriller. It's rare to find a movie this exciting with so much intelligence behind it. --Ali Davis

Witness For the Prosecution

Billy Wilder cowrote and directed this brilliant 1957 mystery based on Agatha Christie's celebrated play about an aging London barrister (Charles Laughton) who's preparing to retire when he takes the defense in the most vexing murder case of his distinguished career. In his final completed film (he died of a heart attack less than a year later), Tyrone Power plays the prime suspect in the murder of a wealthy widow, and Marlene Dietrich plays the wife of the accused, whose testimony--and true identity--holds the key to solving the case. A classic of courtroom suspense, Witness for the Prosecution is one of those movies with enough double-crossing twists to keep the viewer guessing right up to the very end, when yet another surprise is deftly revealed. This being a Billy Wilder film, the dialogue is first-rate and the acting superb, with both Laughton and his offscreen wife Elsa Lanchester (playing the barrister's pesty nurse) winning Academy Awards for their performances. Although later films would concoct even more complicated courtroom scenarios, this remains one of the best films of its kind and a model for all those films that followed its lead. --Jeff Shannon

Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton star in this brilliantly made courtroom drama (The Film Daily) that left audiences reeling from its surprise twists and shocking climax. Directed by Billy Wilder, scripted by Wilder and Harry Kurnitz and based on Agatha Christie's hit London play, this splendid, six-time Oscar-nominated* classic crackles with emotional electricity (The New York Times) and continues to keep movie lovers riveted until the final, mesmerizing frame. When a wealthy widow is found murdered, her married suitor, Leonard Vole (Power), is accused of the crime. Vole's only hope for acquittal is the testimony of his wife (Dietrich) but his airtightalibi shatters when she reveals some shocking secrets of her own! *1957: Best Picture, Actor (Laughton), Supporting Actress (Elsa Lanchester), Director, Sound, Film Editing

The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition)

CIA analyst Jack Ryan, tries to figure out if Russian submarine captain, Marko Ramius, is planning to attack the U.S. coast or planning to defect.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Release Date: 6-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

Before Harrison Ford assumed the mantle of playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan hero in Patriot Games, Alec Baldwin took a swing at the character in this John McTiernan film and hit one to the fence. If less instantly sympathetic than Ford, Baldwin is in some respects more interesting and nuanced as Ryan, and drawing comparisons between both actors' performances can make for some interesting postmovie discussion. That aside, The Hunt for Red October stands alone as a uniquely exciting adventure with a fantastic costar: Sean Connery as a Russian nuclear submarine captain attempting to defect to the West on his ship. Ryan must figure out his true motives for approaching the U.S. McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) made an exceptionally handsome movie here with action sequences that really do take one's breath away. --Tom Keogh